real food, real cooking, real kung fu

Gadget Love Fest

I will freely admit that I’m a kitchen gadget junkie. My hero Alton Brown would be appalled at my kitchen, which is filled will all manner of unitaskers. However, some of them are so unbelievably handy that I think I could turn him to the dark side. Here are some of my favorites:The Garlic Twist: Heavy enough to smash your garlic cloves and big enough to mince up to 6 cloves at a time, this is my all-time favorite unitasker. Unless you count smashing and mincing garlic as two activities instead of one. In the end, it turns whole garlic cloves into many, many tiny bits of garlic. But it does it in a snap. Smash your garlic, stick the pieces into the twist and…you guessed it. Twist the contraption. It turns those cloves nearly into paste if you want it to. I love it and use it every single time I need garlic. Which is often. Luckily it’s easy to clean (just make sure you rinse it right away because dried on garlic is a pain) and it’s dishwasher safe.

NOTE: Don’t be scammed by the $2.15 garlic twist that looks similar to this one. It is a knock-off and is NOT the same. You’ll be bummed and think bad thoughts about KKF. I won’t lead you astray. Buy the real thing.The Lemon Squeezer: If you have a little plastic lemon in your fridge right now, I want you to stop what you’re doing and go get it. Then throw it directly into the trash can. You do not need it nor do you want it. Fresh lemon juice is more nutritious and doesn’t contain garbage like the plastic lemon variety. Plus, it’s easy to squeeze when you have yourself one of these lemon squeezers. They come in lime and orange sizes too but I find the lemon size to be very multi-purpose. You can squeeze a lemon, you can squeeze a lime, and if you need to squeeze an orange you can cut it into four chunks and squeeze away so it’s not exactly a unitasker. (If you need to squeeze enough oranges for orange juice go get a juicer.) Fresh lemon water every day is an easy and beneficial health regimen to get into. Plus it’s a natural breath freshener and tastes light and refreshing!Mr. Pounder: Ok, the actual name brand is Leifheit but in my kitchen it’s known as Mr. Pounder. This thing is heavy (which is what you want in a pounder) and has two handy surfaces: flat for turning pieces of pork, chicken and beef into lovely, uniform thickness cutlets and spiked for tenderizing and home defense. It’s also big enough to handle the job but small enough that you can single out the thick spots without vaporizing the thin spots. I heart Mr. Pounder, and use it every time I make chicken masala or schnitzel to please test subject Bill. It also makes quick work of cabbage for making naturally fermented sauerkraut.

Did you go throw out your plastic lemon? Well?

The Clay Baker: A Romertopf, to be exact. I got this amazing baker as a wedding gift more than 13 years ago and it is a work horse. The reason it’s a unitasker is because I only use it for making roast chicken. You can make a great many other things in it, but it is STELLAR for perfectly roasting a free range bird in your oven. I use Nourished Kitchen’s method and it produces a tender, delicious bird with crunchy skin every time without fail. Get one of these bakers and you will not be disappointed.

This is by no means a complete list of the gadgets I know and love, but they are definitely some of my favorites! What are some of your favorite kitchen tools?